Thank you for faithfully serving Christ as you preserve your local church history and record God’s goodness in and through your church body! It is a big task but an important one as you gather and write the annual history report of your local women’s ministry and church. It’s HIStory! This packet of information will help you as you collect and write your history. Included are: Tips for Writing Histories, Templates for Histories, Local Historian FAQ’s, ARPWM Certificate Form, and a Women’s Ministry poem. On the FAQ page questions #7, 8 refer to writing your history along with my contact information for further questions or digital templates.

I want you to be aware of my responsibilities as your ARPWM Historian which involve three areas:

1. The Historian is in charge of maintaining the Historical Library at Bonclarken. Please feel free to contact me if you would like me to research your church history or you want to schedule a visit to the Synodical Library.
2. The Historian, along with the ARPWM Treasurer, encourages and facilitates the issuing of the certificate awards for Love Gifts, Memorial Gifts, Life Memberships, and Partner in Ministry. In recent years the number of these certificates presented has greatly decreased and I seek your help in looking for ways to encourage churches to honor faithful servants with these awards.
3. Perhaps the most important area is the collecting and storing of the annual local church histories. Unfortunately, churches were failing to submit these histories even before COVID. I believe we need to focus on the ‘Why” of church histories in addition to the “What.” Thus, while names and statistics are important, what really matters is our purpose in writing and preserving our church histories. We want to tell the story of God’s work in and through our churches. Encouraging local historians to this end is my goal!

Serving Christ together,
Cathy Wilson, ARPWM Historian
ARPWMhistorian@gmail.com

P.S. Also, once you finish your Women’s Ministry and church history, I would encourage you to share it with your women at some church event.

Historian FAQ

Tips

Templates

Certificate and Gift Descriptions

Julia Hardeman Rhodes was born in 1876 in Louisville, Georgia. After attending college, she returned to Louisville and married an older man with a disability. Although they had no children, her home was always full of her nieces and nephews. To supplement their income, Julia served lunch on weekdays and later took in female boarders. She was a woman of strong faith and wanted women to aspire to Christian service. In 1905, she undertook a vision of organizing women in local churches on Presbyterial and Synodical levels. In 1906, the ARP women’s ministries organization began as Missionary Societies; later, she organized Second Presbyterial. She also created the Bulletin, the denomination’s first women’s magazine that later became the Journal of Missions, an informational newsletter, which is now The ARP Magazine. Julia Rhodes died of cancer in 1938, but she is remembered for reaching beyond her local church to help organize ARP women across presbyteries and the denomination.

This award is presented to an ARP man or woman who has given long-standing service to his or her local, Presbyterial, and denominational church. He or she epitomizes being a servant of Christ by their love and dedicated service to the ARP Church. If you would like to nominate someone for the 2023 Julia Hardeman Rhodes award, please submit the form by May 1, 2025 and send it to Vicki Marsh, vcmarsh1414@gmail.com.

Previous Winners are listed below

2007 Carole Ellis
2008 Ann Alexander
2009 Dot Tribble
2010 Lucy Patrick
2011 Sarah Ellen Carson
2012 Judi Hodges
2014 Ann Brice
2015 Ann Aheron
2016 Jeanie Alexander
2017 Lynn Grimsley
2020 Gail Fowler
2021 Ann Hicklin
2022 Eleanor Richardson

Click here for the nomination form.

Vicki Marsh, President

Martha McKenzie, Past President

Gillian Brickey, Vice President

Brandy Glaser, Treasurer

Judi Patterson, Secretary

Jane Shelton Dale, Parliamentarian

Emily Woodard, Spiritual Life

Jamie Pettett, Missions & Outreach

Cathy Wilson, Historian

Pamela Crabtree, TN/AL President

Jane Johnson, First Presbyterial President

Gillian Brickey, Catawba Presbyterial President

Susan Cavin, Mississippi Valley President

Bonnie Tucker, Virginia Presbyterial President

Joanne Hamilton, Northeast Representative

Jennifer Hovestadt, Canada Representative

Rachel Reynolds, Florida Representative

No Representative for Grace Presbyterial